Tenmile Distillery

Founded in 2020, Tenmile is a small New York State craft distillery whose core focus is the production of an intentional, ingredient-focused single malt whisky made in the Scottish style.  Housed in a converted dairy barn on seventy acres of farmland in the heart of the Oblong Valley, just two hours north of New York City, Tenmile nimbly expresses a clear vision of an international category while remaining intensely terroir-focused and local.

Production is coming up to steam at an opportune moment. In 2024, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) officially recognized American Single Malt Whisky as a category, providing legal structure for the burgeoning enthusiasm of distillers and American whisk(e)y afficionados. That said, what Tenmile is doing is not a strategically timed one-off. It’s born from the vision of modern Renaissance man and industry polymath John Dyson (the distillery is a family affair: Eliza Dyson, John’s daughter, is Director of Brand; her husband, Joel LeVangia, is the General Manager), and the distillery is helmed by master distiller and Scotch whisky veteran Shane Fraser, whose resume includes Royal Lochnagar, Oban, Glenfarclas, and Wolfburn (where he served as Distillery Manager). At the heart of the Tenmile mission is a focused engagement with the fundamental tenets of single malt production.

The goal—if not simple—is at least straightforward: to make intentional, traditional, high-quality single malt driven by a focus on ingredients and an enlightened devotion to process. Armed with a farm distilling license, Tenmile has forged an engaged relationship with their maltster (Hudson Valley Malts in Germantown, New York) and through them, the farmers who are their neighbors. Locally grown, floor-malted barley receives a long fermentation at low temperatures followed by a slow, gentle distillation in all-copper Forsyths pot stills with upward-angled lyne arms. The methodology isn’t old-fashioned, it’s a living record, and the distillery has reached the joyous moment in its evolution in which every release is a benchmark. For enthusiasts and general consumers alike, Tenmile provides something genuinely different in the American whisky landscape: a distillery whose sole production target is producing high-quality spirit, fueled by an obsession with craft.